The family with four generations of Air Force servicemen
Ahead of today’s fly-past to mark the RAF centenary, Joe Shute meets the family with four generations of brave Air Force service
Today, at 1pm, Squadron Leader Mike Waring will be among the many thousands lining the Mall outside Buckingham Palace, with his eyes fixed on the skies. Of the 100 aircraft hurtling past in formation, intended to mark every year of the Royal Air Force since its inception in 1918, few families will have occupied as many different cockpits as Warings.
In total, during the past century, a Wa ring–or Pick a rd( his great grandfather’ s name )– has flow nina dizzying 22 different RAF aircraft, spanning missions stretching from the Western Front to Afghanistan.
His family story is one inextricably linked with that of the RAF. And as the spectacle roars overhead and his squadron standard is unfurled during the subsequent centenary parade, a century of heroism and sacrifice will be flashing through his thoughts.
“It will be a feeling of immense pride, and the adrenalin will be going, and hairs standing on the back of my neck,” says the 44-year-old, a veteran of Britain’s conflicts in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Northern Ireland, and presently stationed with 57 Squadron, conducting flying training at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire. “It will be a great show. But at the same time I will be remembering.”
That depth of family memory stretches to his great-grandfather, Wada Pickard, who, during the First World War, flew the Beardmoreengined Royal Aircraft Factory FE2B over the Western Front and transferred from the Royal Flying Corps to the newly formed Royal Air Force in 1918.
The two-seater aircraft was so vulnerable – reaching only a maximum speed of 91mph compared with the 350mph jets buzzing over London today – that, by 1916, flying was restricted to night-time use. All the same, many were still blown out of the sky, among them Pickard, shot down over the trenches and invalided at home with a bullet wound and the effects of mustard gas. Compared with the sleek, modern fighter jets of 2018, Waring admits the daring of men like his greatgrandfather takes his breath away. “We have made great strides in reducing the risk to life, but there is still risk in aviation,” he says. “But back then, crikey – I have a huge amount of respect for them.” Pickard’s downing in northern France was perhaps an inauspicious beginning to a family legacy but, still, his deeds proved enough to inspire successive generations to seize the mantle. Next in line was Pickard’s son-in-law, Freddie Waring, who, following the end of the First World War, had married daughter, Ruby. A former soldier who had joined the Essex Constabulary, in 1942 Waring transferred to the RAF. Following training in Canada, he was posted to 620 Squadron; a “special duties” squadron providing airborne support such as dropping paratroopers and laying mines.
On New Year’s Eve 1945, Flying Officer Waring and his fellow pilots tossed a coin to see who would lead a formation of Stirling Mark IV bombers flying a mission off the coast of Norway. Waring lost the toss and went first; a few hours later he was shot down by an enemy flak boat lying in wait. The 30-year-old’s body was never recovered, and his wife was three months pregnant with their son. “My father has never celebrated New Year’s Eve because of that,” Waring says. Following the end of the Second World War, Pickard, whose London home had been bombed during the Blitz, moved to Saffron Walden in Essex to help care for his widowed daughter and grandson, whom she named David.
The family was also supported by the RAF Benevolent Fund, the leading welfare charity for the RAF, which was founded only a few months later in 1919. The charity continues to support Mike Waring and his wife, Lesley, today, as their youngest daughter, Gemma, eight, has Linear nevus sebaceous syndrome, which has left her with complex needs, including significantly delayed learning.
The charity helps to fund swimming and horse-riding lessons to develop Gemma, mentally and physically. The latest generation of the Waring family are as grateful for the assistance as their predecessors were, decades ago.
“It’s a challenge, and the air force family has supported us,” says Mike, “which I’m hugely appreciative of.”
Back in the aftermath of the Second World War, David grew up immersed in the RAF stories of his grandfather and, in spite of losing his father, also set his heart on becoming a pilot.
“I was very proud of the part my father played,” says the now 73-yearold, who lives in Easingwold, near York. “It must have influenced me, and when I told my mother I wanted to join up, she was remarkably stoic. Much to people’s amazement, she said: ‘If that’s what you want to do, then go for it’.”
Over a career that spanned four decades, from 1964 to 2010, David rose to the rank of squadron leader – the same his son would go on to achieve. There have been hairy moments – including an engine failure in a Westland Whirlwind, which caused him to crash-land on an airfield in southwest Wales – but he admits the pilot’s life is one he adores.
“You realise all the stories you read and tales told of the freedom to fly are true,” says David. “You are up there in the clouds, master of your own little universe, and even if you are not quite like a bird, you have a lot of freedom. There are challenges, but the good certainly outweighs the bad.”
He is at pains to stress that, despite their remarkable heritage, the Warings do not consider themselves an “RAF family”. Indeed, he did his best to discourage his son. “I didn’t want Mike to follow me into the RAF because of a misplaced desire to follow one’s father,” he says.
Yet Mike’s ambition to become a pilot ran far deeper than simply a desire to emulate those who had come before him. He, too, found the allure of soaring over the clouds simply impossible to resist.
Both David and Mike Waring have been Puma pilots, and there have been moments during the past few decades when father and son have found themselves flying side by side.
Once, early in Mike’s career, when he took his father up in a two-seat Tucano: “I didn’t have many flight hours and thought I was amazing, but he didn’t say much, possibly because he was quite scared,” he grins.
And then, many years later, the two Warings flew in separate Tucanos across the Irish Sea to a reunion of 230 Squadron, which they had both represented at one stage or another.
On the way back, the winds picked up and cloud thickened; Mike took the decision to drop to a low altitude and lead his aircraft, and the one in which his father was a passenger, to safety. The praise David delivered when they arrived safely back may sound muted: “He told me he was impressed with what he had seen up there,” Mike recalls. Yet for two scions of a great RAF family, no greater compliment need ever be paid.
‘When I told my mother I wanted to join up, she was remarkably stoic’